


Own Your Heart

by Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor (orphan_account)



Series: Pain is So Close to Pleasure [2]
Category: Adam Lambert (Musician)
Genre: Dom/sub, Dominance, M/M, Not Suitable/Safe For Work, Power Play, Safewords
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-02
Updated: 2012-11-02
Packaged: 2017-11-17 14:24:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/552532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Nina_Dances_In_Technicolor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brad has to take care of him. That doesn't always mean being kind. And it doesn't always mean he won't screw up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Own Your Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Minxie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minxie/gifts).



> I know you're an animal, and if you look away  
> It means I'm in control, so come out of your cage  
> And let's get on with it! I'm takin' off the lock  
> And you pick up the scent, so come and get it  
> Come and get it--so come and get it
> 
> There's a taste of blood on your lips  
> Come on strong, animal core  
> So maybe you'll obey the whip  
> As long as I don't slip
> 
> \--"[Animal](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fJm0VcIMLQ)," Cheeks
> 
> It’s alright, you’ll be fine  
> Baby, I’m in control  
> Take the pain, take the pleasure  
> I’m the master of both  
> Close your eyes, not your mind  
> Let me into your soul  
> I’mma work you til you're totally blown
> 
> \--"[For Your Entertainment](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F2hqlV8-N8)," Adam Lambert

It doesn't surprise him when Adam doesn't turn up the first night.

He's still going to have to do something about that, though, he thinks, when he comes home the day after and finds Adam napping in the middle of his bed. Adam's curled up on top of the blankets, his shirt folded neatly on the chair by the bed, everything exactly as it should be. Or close, at least—Adam should be on his knees with his hands behind him, and if Brad had gotten home on time he probably would have been, but it's still a slip.

It's been too long. In more ways than one, and because it _has_ been so long—and Adam's been good, mostly, Brad has his sources to know that, not least among them too-honest Adam himself—he raps his knuckles loudly on the door twice before heading back down the hall to hang his jacket alongside Adam's. If Adam wakes up and wants to be good, he'll be sitting properly when Brad gets back. If he doesn't wake up, Brad decides, he'll chalk it up to the lingering vestiges of jetlag and tour exhaustion and tuck Adam under a coverlet to sleep. If Adam's sluggish, it'll be one more thing he'll answer for, that's all.

He _is_ sluggish, but not too much so; Brad hasn't quite gotten through the door before Adam lowers the arm he was rubbing across his eyes and puts it behind his back, where it belongs, and Brad decides he'll overlook it just this once. Besides, before anything else . . . 

He can still taste sleep on Adam's lips, but nothing about Adam's kisses has ever been sleepy, and Brad has to give him a sharp slap on the thigh when he feels Adam rising to his knees to push forward. Adam sits back, and the kiss breaks.

"Sorry," he murmurs, and then he looks up through his eyelashes and Brad could forgive him right there, if Adam hadn't fallen asleep. "I've missed you."

"I missed you, too," Brad tells him, and cups Adam's head with one hand, fingers curling around the back of his neck, squeezing just a little to remind him that no, he's not off the hook. "I called Tommy a couple of days ago. He said you were being good offstage."

Adam nods, and as he does Brad thinks back to the first phone call, the one he got when Tommy decided not so far into the tour that maybe he _should_ try the bi thing, just to see, and Adam slipped and told him it was against the rules. Brad still doesn't know how that entire conversation went, but he remembers the phone call, and Tommy saying "it's about Adam" and whatever else he planned to say getting completely run over while Brad demanded to know if he was okay and logged onto Expedia in what still has to be some kind of world record, already bracing to be on his way into a hospital room in only a few hours and rambling something at Tommy that the poor boy probably couldn't understand any better than ancient Greek about fuck the paparazzi and dealing with pictures later if he had to be there _right now_. He remembers Tommy finally getting a word in edgewise when Brad stopped to take a breath, just quietly murmuring "He's fine. I think that's all I needed," and hanging up, and he remembers later that night when he finally got hold of a red-faced, sheepish Adam via webcam.

"He thought you were abusing me and I was too crazy to see it," Adam told him that night, while rain rattled on the roof of the tour bus and a balmy summer breeze blew in through Brad's open window. "Like you would."

Brad smiles even as he squeezes the back of Adam's neck, because it's true: he took care of his boys long before he met Adam, and Adam is far more than just a boy—always has been. Then he lets the smile drop, and hears Adam gasp as the back of his neck gets not just squeezed but pinched. "But then I saw some pictures of you in Paris, Adam, and you didn't look like you were being good then, did you?"

Adam drops his head, then shakes it once, slowly. The part of him that still fights back, that still hesitates about slipping down into that headspace where all that matters is Brad and that Brad will take care of him, wants to explain that it was only a kiss, on the cheek at that (and this Brad doesn't doubt—Adam can be clingy, and he's been known to make _incredibly_ bad choices when he's allowed to go out drinking alone, but he's not the cheating type); the part of him that's finally learned to accept, give in, let go, is just waiting for Brad to punish him so he can start over, try to do better next time.

Brad slaps the curve of Adam's ass with his free hand and twists his fingers, hard, into the hair on the back of Adam's head at the same time, forcing Adam to look up at him. "It looked to me," he says, and he imagines most of the people who've seen him online would never believe that tone of voice, the fruity, high-pitched lilt almost completely gone and replaced by a firm sternness, "it looked to me like you were breaking the rules on purpose. I can't let you go anywhere alone, can I?"

"I'm sorry," Adam whispers again, and Brad lets go of his hair.

"Go get the box," he says, and Adam nods wordlessly before sliding off the bed. Brad watches him go and thinks about just how much has changed this year—his ex got stuck on a pedestal headed sky-high with nothing for him to hold onto, and somehow to keep himself from falling off it and breaking his neck on the way he pulled Brad along with him, "ex" became current, and then . . . 

Adam puts the box in front of Brad and takes his place on the bed again, and as Brad sifts through what's in it, deciding just what Adam deserves, letting the tension build as he considers each object, he thinks about the first time Adam saw this box, Brad just looking for handcuffs and Adam outright _daring_ him to pull out a crop or a belt and take it to his ass, like he didn't think Brad would do it, didn't think Brad could even handle it—and then the way Adam simply melted across Brad's legs when he flipped Adam neat as you please over his knee and brought the paddle down. 

For being such a control freak in every other aspect of his life, Adam's surprisingly mellow about having his hands cuffed to Brad's headboard. Sometimes, in this life where Adam pays for Brad to have private parking so they can hide his car and "casual dates" involve Adam in a pair of eyeglasses and a button-down swapping vehicles with Cassidy at the mall to keep the paparazzi away until the two of them are sure going public won't break them apart again, Brad wonders if it's because Adam's finally discovered sometimes it's a blessing to be able to let it all go. But right now, his business isn't wondering—it's unwinding a length of silk rope and telling Adam to take off his jeans.

"On your knees, facing the other way," Brad says, and once Adam's folded his jeans over the chair he obeys. Any other time Brad would probably tell him God gave him a mouth and he should use it, but tonight is out of the norm, tonight hasn't been six hours or six days but six _weeks_ , more than fifty agonising days of talking only on the phone or the computer, telling Adam good morning while he was getting ready for bed, and six weeks is just too fucking long. First he'll take care of business. Then they'll fuck. Then, later, when they've napped and showered and kissed and eaten and cuddled and talked and touched all over, then there will be time to make Adam suck his cock with a blindfold over his eyes, to make him want until he's undone at the seams and begging, and then they'll make love and it'll be the most amazing thing ever but right now, right now he has a disobedient boy to deal with.

Adam's getting better at this part, at staying nearly silent when he's punished until Brad tells him he can let go, and after the third swing leaves a visible bruise blooming where one lash crossed over the other Brad stops long enough to drag the lashes down Adam's back, over red skin and a couple of really good welts, watches Adam shiver.

"You know you shouldn't have done that, right?" Brad asks, and Adam nods. Brad pulls the crop away.

"That's for Paris," he says. Then he lays down a fresh set of stripes crosswise, putting his entire arm behind the swing, puts down another set alongside them. Adam sways. Brad isn't fooled—he could keep going, he's done it before—but tonight is a night where both of them are going to go easy, because Brad can tell just looking at Adam that he needs not just sleep, but real rest, needs to be safe in Brad's arms for the night and however much of the morning he wants to sleep away now that he doesn't have to set an alarm for a few days. It's not just too long since they've touched; it's too long since Adam's been able to take care of himself properly, and Brad isn't going to leave Adam run ragged. But part of that promise, that taking care, is giving Adam what he needs, whatever he needs. 

And right now he needs to be reminded who he's supposed to be good for.

" _That_ is because Tommy didn't say anything about you being good _on_ stage," he continues. "In fact, I heard all over Twitter before I ever heard from Tommy that you were totally misbehaving in Amsterdam." And was he jealous, watching them in a grainy YouTube video that probably didn't capture even a tenth of what was really going on? A little—yes, he can own that. Because it's all rock and roll, and Brad is all about going where the spirit moves in the name of art, but part of him still clenched deep and wished it was him on that stage. It isn't fair that Adam gets very nearly a free pass in the name of the show while Brad sits on his ass in L.A. waiting for him to come home, and his next swing, back on the cross instead of the vertical, carries some of that with it before he swats Adam's ass with the crop, not hard enough to welt but hard enough to sting. "And that's because you get back to L.A. and don't bother to come here or call, but you can totally find the time to tweet about it to a whole lot of people who apparently rank way higher on your list of priorities than your boyfriend." One last time, across the backs of his legs, and this time Adam lets out an audible gasp. Brad wonders when he last slept; Adam's always more sensitive without adequate sleep, to everything from cold to kisses to pain. "You disrespected me, Adam. I don't like being disrespected." He taps Adam's hip with the crop. "Facedown," he says, and watches as Adam complies.

Brad draws the rope through his fingers, then drapes it around his own neck for temporary safekeeping while he reaches out and touches Adam's shoulders. Then he rakes his fingernails down the backs of Adam's arms, raising bright red lines against freckled skin, watches Adam arch and press against the mattress. Then he finds the loop at the end of the rope and slides Adam's right wrist through it, snubs it tight.

"On your back," he commands, and when Adam tries to raise his arm to roll Brad tugs on the rope. "Uh-uh. I didn't say you could move your arm, you little slut."

Brad doesn't miss the wince that crosses Adam's face as soon as the word is out of Brad's mouth, but that's the whole point, isn't it? To tear down the persona of Adam Lambert, rock star, and draw out Adam, the man Brad fell in love with. And yes—Adam Lambert is totally a slut, if only onstage.

Brad pulls the rope as Adam rolls, and then when Adam's almost onto his back there's a word that's not quite just a breath. 

"Meringue," Adam says, and Brad lets the rope through his fingers until Adam nods. He doesn't remember where he read about the idea of a First Word and a Second Word, but he's glad they tried it—sometimes it's not wanting full stop as much as not wanting the inconvenience of a dislocated shoulder when something gets pulled just a little too tight or tied a little too far. Adam settles down onto his arm, hissing as his own weight pushes the lash marks against it, and Brad smiles. He knows it looks deranged, given the circumstances, and he lets it. Then he grabs a pair of leather cuffs—courtesy of one of Adam's bolder fans, and Brad would _love_ to see the looks on their faces if they knew how this stuff was really being used, because inappropriate or not there's no point in just throwing out something perfectly good and brand-new when it's offered that way—and adjusts it around Adam's ankle, pulling one leg away from the other and fastening it securely to the footboard before hooking his fingers again and dragging them up Adam's legs this time. Adam moans, and Brad slaps his calf. Adam tenses but keeps still, and Brad feels a rush of pride.

"You're learning," he says, and watches Adam nearly melt all over the bed. "That's good. But I don't think this lesson is over, do you?"

Brad debates laying a few stripes across Adam's chest. Then he decides that can wait for later, and rifles through his nightstand for a condom.

"We wouldn't need these if you'd behave instead of being a whore," he says, and the truth is he's more worried about things Adam's vaccinated against that he's not that Adam might still be carrying, but he's stripping off Adam Lambert piece by piece, and that means the leather-clad bad-boy who screams "touch me" to thousands of people from the stage has to go. He hears Adam make a noise he can't identify, mostly lost under the sound of tearing foil, and then he shows Adam something he definitely didn't learn in high school—sliding the reservoir against the roof of his mouth and leaning forward to push the condom on with his lips and tongue before sucking once, hard, and watching Adam's free hand twist in the sheets. Brad takes that hand and squeezes the tiny packet in his own hand against Adam's fingers. "Touch yourself. Go on, do it. You spent enough time on that bus, I'm sure you can handle that much."

Adam strokes, once, twice, smearing the lube on his fingers over the condom before Brad stops him, squeezes out more, throws his leg over Adam's hip and straddles his waist, staying up on his knees. Adam slides a finger into him, then two, and Brad puts his hands on Adam's chest, lets his weight rest there, pushing Adam's weight further down against his arm. He knows Adam's knuckles must be digging into the welts on his back by now, but Adam's gotten good at this part, and there's no accompanying cry when Brad rocks forward off his fingers and Adam has to take all of his weight. "Does that hurt?" he asks, and when Adam nods Brad twists his fingers into Adam's hair, knuckles against his scalp. "Don't nod at me, _tell me._ "

And _now_ Adam whimpers, squirms against the arm under his back, tugs a little on the rope around the slats in the headboard—not that it'll help him. "It burns," he says, just above a whisper. "It's like really bad sunburn and—" and then he cries out when Brad reaches, liquid-fast, for the crop he abandoned on the bed and slaps Adam across the chest, sinking back onto his cock at the same time.

"You earned this, you know that, right?" Brad asks him, as Adam's free hand comes to rest on his hip. 

"Yes," Adam murmurs, and Brad taps the side of his arm with the lashes. A bloom of red marks appears, overlaying the fading lines from his fingernails.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, I earned it," Adam says again in that not quite a whisper. "I earned it because I wasn't good."

Brad rocks against him, using his knees for leverage, wishing he had one of those cockrings that goes right around everything and making a mental note that he really needs to get one that Adam might actually fit, laying the crop over Adam's shoulder, just missing his face by virtue of good hand-eye coordination and a lot of practice on less dangerous places. Adam winces, and Brad hits his shoulder again. "You weren't just not good," he tells Adam, and hits his other shoulder. One of the lashes curls around Adam's arm, and when Brad pulls it up he sees a bruise forming against a patch of freckles he's kissed a thousand times. Adam's skin is thin—redhead's curse—and if Brad gets his arm again, he knows, there will be a deep purple-and-red mark there in the morning. "You were being a slut. I didn't really have to ask Tommy how you were doing, you know. Someone was taping every single one of your shows." 

A stray lash hits the side of Adam's neck, and Brad immediately switches hands so he'll have better aim at Adam's chest. Another time it might not matter so much if Adam gets bruises on his neck, but tonight his comfort sleeping needs to be a serious consideration, and his neck is sensitive enough Brad's gotten him off fully clothed just by kissing it the right way. Brad doesn't want him waking up every single time one of their hands bumps somewhere inconvenient. "I could tell for myself you were being a whore all over Europe," he says, and this time when the lash comes down he freezes, because he doesn't need to hear the word Adam whispers to read it on his lips. 

That was the entire reason for picking something like "tangerine" in the first place.

He puts the crop down immediately, pulling off and reaching for the loop holding Adam's arm in place in a single motion. "Baby? Are you okay?"

Adam shakes his head, and Brad can see him fighting tears. He looses Adam's arm and has to make a judgement call fast: his wrist, or his ankle?

Finally he reaches for Adam's arm, draws it gently out from beneath him to untie his wrist, because he can do it one-handed and that means he can cuddle Adam with his free arm. "Shhhh, babydoll, it's all right, it's over," he murmurs into Adam's ear, and as soon as Adam's wrist is free he rolls over and pulls Brad tight against him.

"I didn't, I swear to god, I promise, it was just once, Tommy was there the whole time—"

And then it hits Brad that Adam thinks he was still talking about the picture, and he quiets Adam's tearful ramble as effectively as he knows how, with a soft brush of lips on lips. "Shh. I know." He runs his fingers through Adam's hair. "I know you wouldn't do something like that to me." He feels Adam's breathing slowly even out toward calmness and strokes his face. "Is it all right if I go get something to clean you up?"

Adam nods, and Brad kisses him again, quick, sweet, before pulling away, freeing Adam's ankle as he slides off the bed and pushing the leather cuffs and crop both off the side of the bed, into the box, and shoving it under the bed with his foot. He can put it back where it belongs later. Right now, right now Adam needs him.

He remembers the first time they lay together after, Adam saying _you never used to do that_ and then _you've changed_ , and Brad stroking his hair and kissing the fading ring of teeth marks on Adam's shoulder and answering him: _so have you. Kind of funny how we still both fit so well, isn't it?_

Right now he doesn't feel like they fit well, and he's already making a note that "whore" is a word he'll never use in any scene with Adam, ever again. He grabs a clean washcloth from the stack by the sink and runs it under cool water, pulls a bottle of lotion out of the cabinet, returns to Adam's side with cleanup supplies and a glass of water that Adam sits up to sip while Brad wipes the sweat and a few stray beads of blood from Adam's back where the rough edge of a ring scratched a welt open. He kisses the side of Adam's neck, soft, gentle, feels Adam shiver and wraps his arms around to take care of the marks on Adam's arm and chest.

"Are you going to be okay, babydoll?" he asks, and Adam leans his head on Brad's, nuzzles his cheek against Brad's hair before nodding. "Do you want me to . . . ?" He leaves the rest of the question unasked, resting a hand on Adam's thigh, instead, and Adam shakes his head. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart," he murmurs. "I wanted to take care of you tonight."

Adam waits until Brad finishes with his stomach to his satisfaction and folds the washcloth over on the nightstand before leaning back against Brad's chest. "I know." He rests his head against Brad's shoulder, and Brad realises just how exhausted Adam is: with his adrenaline spent, he's already on his way back to sleep.

"Need to put this on your back, babydoll," he says, and when he gets no answer, "Adam."

Adam's eyes twitch, then flutter open, and he mumbles something nobody who hasn't spent many days waking up next to him would ever understand.

"No, not tomorrow. You'll wake up and you won't be able to move." Which is undoubtedly laying it on thick, less than a dozen lashes to his back and roughly an equal number to his front is nowhere near enough to leave Adam stiff and too sore to get up, but Brad wants him to wake up relaxed, refreshed. Any scene they may have in the next day or two is going to have to be approached with even more than usual care, and Brad isn't going to let Adam try to charge ahead without being at his best. Not after tonight. "If you want to sleep on your belly I can take care of it while you sleep."

Adam rolls onto his front at once, one arm under his head, and before Brad sets about soothing his skin he lies down alongside and brings Adam's chin up with one finger so they're eye to eye. Adam blinks at him sleepily, and Brad leans close to kiss him.

"Don't ever doubt how much I love you, babydoll," he says. "No matter what."

Adam reaches up his free hand and touches Brad's face, then smiles the smile of someone mostly asleep and secure in the knowledge that he's safe, cared for. Brad is thrilled to see it. Tomorrow they can deal with this, if it needs dealt with further; for now, he thinks, Adam will sleep well. "Love you too."

Brad catches Adam's hand and kisses his fingers, lets his hand back down to the mattress.

"Sleep sweet, baby," he murmurs, and spreads a ribbon of lotion over Adam's shoulders.


End file.
